Fox Wins Prime Time Against Mostly Repeats, Even as ‘Dance’ Notches Its Lowest Season Premiere

Fox claimed a ratings win for prime time Wednesday night, based on Nielsen overnights for the key 18-49 demo. But TVbytheNumbers.com reports that the win came despite an all-time low for a premiere of the network's "So You Think You Can Dance."

The two-hour program pulled in a 1.6 in viewers 18-49, off 16% from the previous season premiere. But that was good enough to win prime time overall on a night when most of the broadcast competition consisted of repeat programming.

Among the few fresh shows, NBC's "Inside the Mind of Edward Snowden" delivered a 1.3 average in 18-49 at 10 p.m., improving on the network's summer 2013 average for the time slot by 18%, while ABC's "Motive" equaled its number for last week's premiere, a 0.9.

For prime time overall, Fox led the way in the 18-49 demo with a 1.6 average, ahead of NBC (1.2 average) and Univision, CBS and ABC, all with 1.0 averages. CBS, which aired all repeats, won total viewers with 6.3 million, topping Fox (5.3 million), NBC (4.7 million), ABC (4.1 million) and Univision (2.7 million).